What Is It?
The virtual reality (VR) short film/mobile phone app Ghost In The Shell: The Movie – Virtual Reality Diver (Kôkaku Kidôtai: Shin Gekijô-Ban – Virtual Reality Diver).
What Is It About?
This is how Fandom describes this virtual reality (VR) short film and mobile phone app:
“To end the war and protect my wife, I must delete you all…”
Japan, 2025.
A time when cybernetic technology allows humans to connect their brains to the Network, and to replace body parts with enhanced prosthetics.
In this world where the boundary between humans and machines has lost meaning, computer crime and cyberterrorism occur daily.
And now, a bombing attack threat is sent to the Japanese government.
The target is an international meeting involving dignitaries from the Republic of Kuzan.
The case is entrusted to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Public Security Section 9.
Section 9’s leader, the fully cyber-bodied Motoko Kusanagi, assembles her team and heads off to stop the terrorist.
This is how Wikipedia describes it:
On September 14, 2015, Production I.G. announced a 10-minute virtual reality short film titled Kōkaku Kidōtai – Shin Gekijōban: Virtual Reality Diver based on The New Movie.
The short film is described as an “original story” presented in “360° 3D video” and will play through the use of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, releasing worldwide on both the Apple App Store and Google Play in the fourth quarter of 2015.[18]
A three-minute demonstration trailer of Virtual Reality Diver was shown at the 2015 Tokyo Game Show.
It was input through a single 2D channel, rather than the 3D input planned for the final product, in order to present it to a larger press through the six-meter hemispherical display.
In subsequent press releases, many outlets released tilted photographs of the trailer.[19]
Virtual Reality Diver is part of Production I.G.’s “SIGN” project, an effort to create a “bodily sensation of being in another world” and to “combine futuristic technology with art”.
It will be a collaborative effort with graphics design studio “WOW”.
Staff from Production I.G. includes Mikio Gunji as executive producer, Atsunori Maeshima as producer, and Hiroyuki Ogino as an assistant.
Staff from WOW includes Nobumichi Asai as creative director, Toshiyuki Takahei as technical director, and Satoru Itoya as technical producer.[18]
The voice work in the film features Maaya Sakamoto as Major Kusanagi, Kenichirou Matsuda as Batou, Miyuki Sawashiro as the Logicoma, Ryota Takeuchi as original character Okitatsu Oribe and Sayaka Ohara as Yuri.[19]
My Thoughts
I had no idea that this existed until recently, when I accidentally saw a thumbnail for it on a streaming video website.
Which is sad because I have seen all the Ghost In The Shell movies and TV shows that I know of.
So I guess they did not want people to know about this or something.
This must have been terribly advertised if even a Ghost In The Shell fan like myself who has made posts about this franchise, who has watched this franchise, who has watched reviews and videos about this franchise, did not know that it existed.
Recent parts of the franchise that are animated and/or video game related et cetera have not been advertised well or at all.
So it is hard for even fans to know when new Ghost In The Shell content is added to the franchise, which is unacceptable to me especially for a franchise like this.
Unfortunately, I did not have a virtual reality headset to watch this on and the version that I saw was not very watchable without a VR headset and the audio was not good; so watching this was not a positive experience.
It did look like some of the environments would look cool if you had a VR headset, but other than that the art style did not match Ghost In The Shell: The New Movie enough and the short film/whatever itself was not that good and was a bit of a waste of time.
The end,
- John Jr
John Jr's Blog 